


Be What You Are

by brinnanza



Category: Star Trek: Deep Space Nine
Genre: Dating, F/M, First Kiss, Identity Issues, Trill Joining
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-27
Updated: 2016-11-27
Packaged: 2018-09-02 16:54:43
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,571
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8675293
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/brinnanza/pseuds/brinnanza
Summary: It’s just lunch. She’s had lunch with Jake before: they’d sort of fallen into the habit after returning to the station after Tyree. He’s sweet and he makes her laugh and he treats her like she’s her own person and not just the sequel to Jadzia, even when she forgets her name or her pronouns or that she doesn’t actually have any children.





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [shinealightonme](https://archiveofourown.org/users/shinealightonme/gifts).



> Written for [toast-the-unknowing](http://toast-the-unknowing.tumblr.com/) for round five of the [Trek Rarepair Swap](http://trek-rarepair-swap.tumblr.com/). Thanks for Jazzy for beta reading!

Ezri’s pretty sure her office is a closet.

It’s a sizable closet to be sure, large enough for her desk, a couple of chairs, and, after several rounds of rearranging, even a low couch crammed into one corner, but it is unmistakably a closet. The amount of junk she’d had to remove to make it habitable had kind of been a giveaway. 

She’s reviewing her schedule for the rest of the afternoon (booked solid; it had taken about an hour after the announcement that DS9 had a full time counselor again for the station to fill up her calendar for the next month) when the door chime rings. She hopes it’s not an emergency -- there is time built into the schedule for emergencies and Julian is always available as a backup, but it would still take some finagling to accommodate.

“Come in,” she calls, and a moment later, Jake Sisko appears in the doorway, dressed in a flattering blue collared shirt under a tan striped vest.

He gives her a little wave, and a grin spreads across her face. “I hope you’re not here for an appointment,” she says. “I’m afraid there are no opening for a while. Who’d have thought a station on the front lines needed so much counseling, huh?”

Jake comes in properly, the door sliding shut behind him and drops into a chair in front of Ezri’s desk. Ezri’s gaze is momentarily distracted by his long limbs sprawled everywhere, but then she looks up to meet his eyes. 

“I don’t need an appointment to take you to lunch, do I?” Jake says. He looks at her from beneath long lashes, his hopeful expression just a bit too over the top.

She laughs a little, and then the daunting memory of her calendar cuts it off. “Probably wouldn’t be a bad idea,” she says. She frowns. “I know it’s important to schedule time for myself so I don’t get burnt out, but I want to be available for anyone who needs my help, which, as it turns out, is a lot more people than I was prepared for. Not surprising considering the amount of preparation I did before all of… this --” she gestures vaguely to the station as a whole -- “and who can prepare for any of this, really, but --”

There’s a smile tugging at the corner of Jake’s mouth as Ezri rambles, his eyebrows raised fractionally as if he finds the whole display endearing instead of, as with most people, awkward and kind of annoying. It’s the sort of expression that would be right at home on his father’s face, and Ezri’s mouth runs away from her while she’s trying to sort out Curzon’s memories of Ben at Jake’s age.

“Well, anyway,” Ezri says, forcibly dragging her attention back to the present, “I’m sorry, but I just don’t have time today. Rain check?”

“Sure,” Jake says easily. “Can you pencil me in for tomorrow?”

“Absolutely.” They grin at each other dopily for a moment, and then Ezri says, “Oh, wait --” She pulls up her schedule for tomorrow to double check. She’s got so many patients she’s forgetting where she put all of them, but no, she has an hour free for lunch tomorrow. “Yes, tomorrow.”

Jake pushes himself to his feet. He seems much too tall for the small room, which is tiny even at Ezri’s stature, but it doesn’t seem to phase him. “Great, I’ll see you then. Don’t double book me!”

“I won’t,” she promises, and he leaves.

She has about ten minutes before her next appointment with Ensign Kusinagi, and she still needs to review the case notes and get herself in the right head-space. In some ways, Ben had been right about her three centuries of additional experience making her better at her job -- the wealth of new first-hand (second-hand?) memories make it easier to relate to her patients -- but they get in the way just as often. It’s hard enough to ignore Jadzia’s and Curzon’s memories of Jake, which go back for longer than is comfortable, but she’s got Audrid’s first kiss and Torias’s wedding day clamoring for attention too, to say nothing of the whole collection of blushing young crushes simmering in the background. Ezri closes her eyes and takes a deep breath, trying to center herself, but there’s a fluttering thing in her chest, flapping its wings and ruining her concentration. 

It’s just lunch. She’s had lunch with Jake before: they’d sort of fallen into the habit after returning to the station after Tyree. He’s sweet and he makes her laugh and he treats her like she’s her own person and not just the sequel to Jadzia, even when she forgets her name or her pronouns or that she doesn’t actually have any children. Jadzia’s friends had become her friends rather easily, but that didn’t mean they didn’t sometimes look at her and see Jadzia’s replacement.

The door sensor sounds again, bringing an abrupt ending to any further musings. Ensign Kusinagi keeps her chin tucked into her chest so her dark hair cascades across her face, half-hiding her nervous expression, and when she sits, she perches on the edge of her chair as if she’s ready to flee at any moment.

That, at least, is a feeling Ezri can relate to without the extra 350 years of memories. She folds her hands on top on her desk and tries to project an air of professionalism. Ezri Tigan had sometimes struggled to conceal her insecurities from her patients, but she thinks Ezri Dax does okay.

\--

“You did not!”

Jake is nodding at her from across the small replimat table, his eyes wide and serious. “We did,” he insists. He bats his ridiculously long lashes at her and the flapping thing in her chest, which had elected not to go to sleep last night when she had, beats its wings a little harder. “Would I lie to you?”

Ezri wrinkles her nose at him. “Lie? No. Exaggerate? Absolutely. You’re a writer; that’s what you do.”

Jake flashes her a smile that’s all charm and leans back in his chair, crossing his arms over his chest. “You know, you’re only a little taller than Nog. I bet you could fit into the same conduit.”

“It’s not still there?” Ezri says. Jake’s smile gets a little wider. “But it’s been years! You’re telling me you and Nog hid Odo’s bucket for a prank and he _never_ found it?”

“He also couldn’t prove it was us that did it,” Jake says, an unmistakable air of pride in his voice. He leans forward conspiratorially. “I can trust you not to tell, right?”

“That depends,” Ezri says, leaning in to meet him. “Can I trust you not to tell him it’s me that keeps re-stacking his padds out of order?”

“That’s you?” Jake says. He laughs. “That’s almost as good as when Jadzia used to move everything in his quarters a centimeter to the left.”

“I’m thinking of taking that up again, actually. Just cause there’s a war on doesn’t mean we can’t have a little fun, right?” Maybe it’s juvenile, sitting here and planning pranks, but it’s a welcome change of pace. Everyone expects her to act like she’s actually 350 years old (or solidly middle-aged at least). Jake seems to like her just as she is, young and full of Jadzia’s playfulness.

There’s a fond smile still lingering on Ezri’s lips as she walks back to her office after lunch when Kira falls into step beside her. “So,” she says, looking entirely too pleased with herself, “how many lunch dates with the young Mr. Sisko does this make?”

Ezri wrinkles up her nose at her. “I think Jadzia’s gossip habit must have rubbed off on you,” she says. Kira’s mouth tightens fractionally at the mention of Ezri’s previous host, which Ezri politely pretends not to notice. “They’re not dates. It’s just lunch. We’re friends. We have lunch together.”

Kira raises a skeptical eyebrow, which Ezri also ignores. “Friends don’t look at each other the way you two were looking at each other.”

Ezri stops to one side of the promenade, grasping Kira’s arms so they’re facing each other. She leans in a little and says, “Even if I theoretically wanted them to be lunch dates instead of regular platonic lunches -- which I’m not saying I do -- I can’t. It’s too… complicated.”

“This isn’t like with Lenara, is it?” Kira asks, frowning a little in concern. “Because you knew him before?”

“No, no,” Ezri says. “It’s just… I have Jadzia’s memories and Curzon’s memories and those are all decidedly non-romantic. Jake was like Jadzia’s nephew. It makes it kind of weird.”

“Well, how do _you_ feel about him?”

Ezri catches her bottom lip between her teeth and chews on it for a moment. “I don’t know. Non-joined Ezri would have liked him, I think. He’s cute and funny and sweet…. Joined Ezri just has too many other voices in her head.”

“But Ezri is still one of them, right?” Ezri nods. “So just listen to her. It doesn’t matter what the rest of them think. They’re part of you, but they’re not _you_.” Kira’s voice is matter-of-fact -- leave it to her to distill centuries of Trill identity politics down to a single sentence.

“Huh,” Ezri says, turning it over for a minute. “Are you sure you don’t want to be a counselor? You seem to have a knack for it.”

Kira laughs. “Only if you’re my only patient.”

“I would be a full time job,” Ezri agrees. She can remember all the initiate training of her previous hosts -- Dr. Jaris’s third period lectures, the way Tobin chewed on the end of his stylus, the way Jadzia bounced her leg under her desk -- but it’s no substitute for going through all the training herself.

“I have to get back to Ops,” Kira says, and they start walking again. “Do you want to get dinner later? I mean, if you don’t have a date.” She gives Ezri a wicked smirk.

Dax’s 350 years grant her the maturity to refrain from sticking out her tongue, even though 21-year-old Ezri Tigan desperately wants to. “Well, I was going to say yes, but now I might just schedule a date instead.”

Kira’s smirk broadens. “Say hi to Jake for me.”

21-year-old Ezri wins out in the end.

\--

If her next appointment is ten minutes late like usual, then Ezri should have just enough time to finish her sandwich and review the case notes. It’s just her luck that the door sensor chimes at exactly thirteen hundred hours.

“One moment!” she calls around a mouthful of bread. Lieutenant Michaels has picked a fine time to start being punctual, Ezri thinks sourly. She gulps down the rest of her tea, skims through the rest of the page, and then says, “Come in! I’m sorry, I -- Oh, Jake!” Her sour mood evaporates at once.

“You ready to go?” Jake says. “I know you don’t like Klingon food, but they have a new--”

“I’m so sorry, I completely forgot we had a--” Date, Ezri doesn’t say. “That we were going to have lunch today.” She had been so busy with the crew of the USS Aquitaine, which had pulled in for repairs last week and was currently without a counselor of its own, that she hadn’t really had time to even think about lunch.

Jake shrugs. “That’s alright.” He gives her one of those charming smiles and Ezri’s stomach flutters. “Why don’t we have dinner instead?”

“Dinner?” Ezri repeats. Lunch had been decidedly platonic, regardless of what Kira said. Ezri had had lunch with lots of people -- friends, coworkers, even Morn once, though that had been less “with” and more “as an audience to”. Dinner is more ambiguous. Dinner is a date -- or it could be a date.

(She’s pretty sure she wants it to be a date).

“Sure,” Jake says. “How about the day after tomorrow? The Aquitaine is supposed to ship out by then, right?” Ezri nods. “So eight o’clock at Vic’s? I’ll come by your quarters to pick you up.”

It sounds suspiciously _like_ a date. Emony had plenty of experience being asked out on dates so Ezri knows what it’s like, but the closest she’d ever come had been some awkward flirting, and that had been a totally different Ezri.

“It’s a date!” she says before she can stop herself. Sudden nerves bubble up in her stomach and find their way out of her mouth as words. “I mean -- if you -- if that’s what you meant. It doesn’t have to be if you don’t want -- I just mean--” Her cheeks flush warm and she ducks her head. Emony’s experience is apparently no match for Ezri’s innate ability to embarrass herself.

“It’s a date,” Jake confirms. He grins at her, and it’s a good thing Ezri’s already sitting down because she’s pretty sure her knees get a little wobbly.

\--

Ezri’s hands are clasped tightly at the small of her back, unconsciously channeling Lela as she delivers her report. “Overall, morale is still low,” she tells Ben, “but having a full time counselor on the station again is definitely having a positive effect. Further improvements may be made with additional counseling staff to assist with temporary crew on station from ships in for repairs.”

“Thank you, Lieutenant,” Ben says. He reaches for the baseball on the corner of his desk and then leans back in his chair, studying her.

“Was there something else?” Ezri asks.

He tosses the ball from hand to hand, working up to whatever it is. “There is one more thing,” he says finally. He sets the ball down. “I hear you’ve been dating my son.”

There is a different sort of fluttering thing in Ezri’s chest now, and it’s trying to claw its way up her throat. “I’m not -- I mean, we’ve been having lunch together and we made plans for tomorrow night, but I think _dating_ is a little hasty.”

Ben raises his eyebrows at her. “That’s not what Colonel Kira tells me.”

It’s a wonder anyone has any secrets at all on this station the way people gossip, Ezri thinks. Jadzia’s influence is definitely to blame. “We would have told you,” Ezri assures him. “There just wasn’t anything to tell yet.” She had considered bringing it up with Jake, but she hadn’t wanted to spook whatever delicate thing was blossoming between them. “Are you mad?”

Ben shifts in his chair, an uncomfortable look on his face. “It’s just -- isn’t he a little young for you?”

Trill age conventions continue to make everything more complicated than it needs to be. No wonder Trill had kept the joining a secret for so long. “I’m only about a year older than he is.”

“Give or take three centuries.”

Ezri twists her hands for a moment, and then she crosses to sit in the chair in front of Ben’s desk. “I know you’re concerned because he’s your son, but I’m not -- it doesn’t work like that. I’m not just what I remember. I’m Dax, but I’m also Ezri, and Ezri is 21 years old.”

Ben doesn’t look entirely convinced, and Ezri blames Jadzia for that too. Sometimes it feels like Jadzia was born 350 years old, like Jadzia Idaris had just been a stepping stone to becoming Jadzia Dax. But Ezri had spent her whole life expecting to be Ezri Tigan forever. Ezri Tigan had been someone, a whole person all on her own.

Ezri Dax still remembers what it was like to be Ezri Tigan. If she’s just the sum of her memories, of Dax’s memories of memories, then what does that make Ezri, with all her jumbled up impulses, memories from the wrong time slipping through the walls she builds around what’s hers? (A mess is what it makes her, she thinks, but that was true before joining too.)

Ben lets out a long, slow breath and then he says, “You know, sometimes I forget how young you are now, old man.”

The nickname should feel incongruous, and it does a little, but Ben has been her friend through three lifetimes and she knows him as well as she knows her own hands. She and Jake are both consenting adults and they don’t need Ben’s permission, but he is the center section in the venn diagram between them and, well, she’s been a father before. Or -- she remembers what fatherhood is like. It’s all so complicated -- no wonder Ben has misgivings about her dating his son.

“So do I,” Ezri admits. She reaches forward to lay her hand on top of Ben’s. “Look, if you want me to stop seeing him, I can understand that. But I hope you can see that I really -- that I would have liked him before. Ezri Tigan would have liked Jake. And _does_ \-- since whatever else I am, I am Ezri first and foremost.” She looks up from the desk to meet his eyes, hoping it’s her he sees and not just another Dax.

“I don’t want to see Jake get hurt,” Ben says. After a beat he says, “I don’t want to see you get hurt either.”

“I can’t promise that won’t happen,” Ezri says. “You know better than most that life has no guarantees. But I think we could make each other happy. That’s worth something, isn’t it?”

Ben flips his hand over and gives her palm a squeeze. “That’s worth a lot,” he says.

\--

Ezri swears she can feel a whole bar full of eyes on her as she and Jake walk into Quark’s together, Jake’s hand resting lightly on the small of her back. It’s ridiculous, of course -- she can’t possibly be drawing that much attention, even if she is walking close enough to the son of the Emissary and station commander that she can feel the warmth of his skin on her bare arm.

Jake stops at the bar to pick up their dinner, and Quark stops mid-pour, setting the bottle of brandy down on the counter and leering at them. “Well well well,” he says, crossing his arms. “So the rumors are true. Congratulations, Jake.”

Jake’s posture stiffens, probably ready to jump in and defend her honor, but Ezri beats him to it. She fixes him with an icy scowl and says, “Just because I’m not six feet tall anymore doesn’t mean I can’t still kick your butt.”

Quark’s answering expression is more amused than threatened, but Ezri figures she’ll get his contrition in the form of latinum later. She’d lost Dax’s taste for bloodwine and raktajino, but she can still wipe the floor with Quark in Tongo.

“Of course,” Quark says, his voice dripping with faux graciousness. “My apologies. Enjoy your evening, you two.” He hands over a covered tray and then winks at Jake when he thinks Ezri isn’t looking.

On their way up the stairs, Jake says, “You’d think Quark would have learned by now not to mess with a Dax, huh?”

Ezri snorts. “Quark, learning from his mistakes? That’ll be the day.”

The program is already running when the holosuite door slides open, and the maitre d' takes the tray from Jake and then leads them over to a small, candle-lit table. Vic is on stage, crooning something soft and romantic that manages to be audible over the low hum of conversation without overpowering their own. 

Jake pulls out her chair for her, and Ezri sits down. Their holographic waiter whisks the top of their tray away and sets out the dishes and the drinks as Jake takes his seat across from her, and the fluttering in Ezri’s chest is back in full force.

It turns out that dinner is a lot like lunch.

Dax has been on a lot of dates and Ezri remembers most of them (Curzon and Jadzia each have a few that are a little fuzzy around the edges), but it turns out Ezri’s own experience is more than sufficient. They talk about station gossip and the stories Jake is working on; Ezri babbles and Jake tells bad jokes and it doesn’t matter how many dates Ezri Dax has been on, because this is the only one that matters.

After they finish eating, they listen to the music for a little while, and then Jake gets to his feet and extends a hand to Ezri. “Want to dance?” he asks.

She grins and takes his hand and he whirls her around the dance floor, his hand firm and warm on her back. The height difference should make it awkward, but Jake is a capable dancer, ensuring she stays on her feet even when he sends her spinning away from him, both of them laughing. Ezri has been young before, but not like this -- maybe because this is just hers, no wash of someone else’s life.

Vic transitions into a slow song, and Jake pulls Ezri close, swaying gently to the rhythm of the song. Ezri’s heart is pounding so loud it surely must be audible over the music, and the wings in her chest have multiplied and spread, fluttering under every inch of flushed skin.

“Did I know you could dance?” Ezri asks, her voice breathless. She doesn’t think it’s from the exertion.

“You do now,” Jake murmurs, and then he leans down to kiss her.

Ezri Dax remembers a lot of kisses, but this one is just hers.


End file.
